That's crazy, I wonder why they went and did that. Either way, thanks for the fast response.

It was intended as an option for low geared hit based casters to reach caps. With the way gear spread is across an expansion currently, starting in entry level blues it can be rather complicated to hit cap for some classes.

Remember shadow has both hit and spirit it can use to reach the cap, classes like mages and warlocks do not. So with this change it allows them to on a piece with say Hit and Mastery, Reforge the mastery to expertise, (where we would normally do mastery to spirit, they are unable to) and end up with 100% of one stat, and 40% of the second towards their hit cap. It's entirely for flexibility with gearing.

The bonus to us, is that it uses a red gem color (or the red side of an orange gem) where as hit and spirit both use blue. So in top end gear, what priests are doing now, is aiming for as little spirit/hit gear as possible, and taking advantage of the double secondary stat on gems, and putting the expertise in the red sockets, leaving more of the stats on your gear available to be reforged to crit and mastery (assuming you're already at haste gcd cap) as they would likely be worth more than 50% of what Int is.

Anything in particular you would suggest? Looking back I realize this question was vague. I mean like any particular H Scenarios or dungeons that would be more likely to drop a weapon I could use?

The Daily Heroic Scenario bag can give you a 516 weapon you can upgrade to 524 - I seem to get a lot of weapons that way - I'd definitely recommend that. Beyond that, LFR can give you some good stuff - I'd recommend Flex but you probably wouldn't be let in with your weapon :/

It was intended as an option for low geared hit based casters to reach caps. With the way gear spread is across an expansion currently, starting in entry level blues it can be rather complicated to hit cap for some classes.

Remember shadow has both hit and spirit it can use to reach the cap, classes like mages and warlocks do not. So with this change it allows them to on a piece with say Hit and Mastery, Reforge the mastery to expertise, (where we would normally do mastery to spirit, they are unable to) and end up with 100% of one stat, and 40% of the second towards their hit cap. It's entirely for flexibility with gearing.

The bonus to us, is that it uses a red gem color (or the red side of an orange gem) where as hit and spirit both use blue. So in top end gear, what priests are doing now, is aiming for as little spirit/hit gear as possible, and taking advantage of the double secondary stat on gems, and putting the expertise in the red sockets, leaving more of the stats on your gear available to be reforged to crit and mastery (assuming you're already at haste gcd cap) as they would likely be worth more than 50% of what Int is.

I like the way you think

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Originally Posted by Yvaelle

The Daily Heroic Scenario bag can give you a 516 weapon you can upgrade to 524 - I seem to get a lot of weapons that way - I'd definitely recommend that. Beyond that, LFR can give you some good stuff - I'd recommend Flex but you probably wouldn't be let in with your weapon :/

It does not matter how far 'behind the curve' you are. Whether you just dinged 90 or you're pushing Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar you will stack Haste up until the 18,215 Haste Rating cap. If that means the highest you can get is only 3k Haste rating... GET 3K HASTE RATING.

Definitely the Sandals of Two Little Bees - you can reforge master or spirit to haste and you can reforge other items to make the spirit remain at hit cap - but the stat jump from 502 to 528 is way too big to ignore

Is your UVLS 502? 522 UVLS was heavily nerfed, but it might still be better than the Shadopan trinket. Purified Bindings though are definitely worth swapping in, I'm just not quite sure which is the secondary because I haven't seen the new math on just how bad UVLS is now.

You should swap both of those 553's in and break your 4p bonus, the item level alone is worth it

Generally speaking, anything from Normal or Heroic SoO is going to be worth swapping in over anything from ToT just because of how crazy the item level jumps are at this point.

Since I rolled troll, would it be best if I got 3 orbs then used berserking with DP+Shadowfiend, but only two or 3 procs, or used berserking with only DP but used shadowfiend with all my procs.

It really depends on the fight, if popping Shadowfiend on cooldown will get you more Shadowfiends into a fight - it's better to get more with fewer procs than to hold onto it hoping the stars will align. Similarly for DP, the risk of having another Orb Generator come off cooldown when you already have 3 is a huge risk that makes it not really feasible to retain Orbs to optimize procs during DP application. If Mind Blast, Death, or DI procs are ready - and you are already sitting on 3 orbs - you are delaying all future casts of those Orb Generators by waiting even just a single GCD: not worth it. Therefore, whenever possible - absolutely align DP and Shadowfiend with as many procs (and Berserking) as possible - but delaying either of them significantly is generally a DPS loss versus using them essentially on cooldown.

It's a problem with the 3-orb maximum capacity we currently face - in my proposed model for 6.0 - I'm suggesting the devs give us a 5-orb maximum so that we can delay finishers (only DP currently) for optimization of movement/procs/fight mechanics.

Second, if I go into DI for a fight, is it worth it interrupting MF:I after the second tick for the instant MB or SW: D

Third, when should I not use the second SW: D that gives no orb. Currently I use SW: D twice in most cases, the only time I hold it back is if i have a DP. So it would like something like:

Have 1 orb - MB+SW: D - DP- MF:I

Always double-tap Shadow Word: Death now - prior to 5.4 it was worthwhile to game the 6 second Orb generation cooldown on Death by only pressing it once, but they nerfed this behaviour in 5.4 to force us to double-tap. It's not an elegant solution, but it's what we have been given.

It really depends on the fight, if popping Shadowfiend on cooldown will get you more Shadowfiends into a fight - it's better to get more with fewer procs than to hold onto it hoping the stars will align. Similarly for DP, the risk of having another Orb Generator come off cooldown when you already have 3 is a huge risk that makes it not really feasible to retain Orbs to optimize procs during DP application. If Mind Blast, Death, or DI procs are ready - and you are already sitting on 3 orbs - you are delaying all future casts of those Orb Generators by waiting even just a single GCD: not worth it. Therefore, whenever possible - absolutely align DP and Shadowfiend with as many procs (and Berserking) as possible - but delaying either of them significantly is generally a DPS loss versus using them essentially on cooldown.

It's a problem with the 3-orb maximum capacity we currently face - in my proposed model for 6.0 - I'm suggesting the devs give us a 5-orb maximum so that we can delay finishers (only DP currently) for optimization of movement/procs/fight mechanics.

Always double-tap Shadow Word: Death now - prior to 5.4 it was worthwhile to game the 6 second Orb generation cooldown on Death by only pressing it once, but they nerfed this behaviour in 5.4 to force us to double-tap. It's not an elegant solution, but it's what we have been given.

Hope that helps!

Thanks a lot for the help! i really appreciate it.
so even a casted mind blast and double SW: D is priority over a casted MF: I is what you're saying?

So Question regarding Trinkets.
Got Black Blood of Y'Shaarj yesterday and well...its shit when used together with UVLS.
It takes 10 Seconds to stack to maximum, i would refresh dots at 10 seconds to get most spellpower out of it, but UVLS has only a 4 second timeframe.

So i guess its time to switch out UVLS.

Which Trinket would you guys choose? i have megaera trinket HC+TF, and Animus Trinket HC.

So Question regarding Trinkets.
Got Black Blood of Y'Shaarj yesterday and well...its shit when used together with UVLS.
It takes 10 Seconds to stack to maximum, i would refresh dots at 10 seconds to get most spellpower out of it, but UVLS has only a 4 second timeframe.

So i guess its time to switch out UVLS.

Which Trinket would you guys choose? i have megaera trinket HC+TF, and Animus Trinket HC.